Worde, WYNKYN DE

Worde, WYNKYN DE, pupil and successor of Caxton (q.v.), was most probably a native of Worth in Belgium. It is not known when he entered Caxton's service, but most likely it was at a very early age, as he was still living in 1535. In 1491 he succeeded to the stock-in-trade of his deceased master, but he did not append his name to his books till 1493. From about 1502 onwards he worked in Fleet Street at the sign of the Sun. He used on his books many varieties of Caxton's 'mark,' and Mr Blades gives as many as fourteen variant forms of his own name. Wynkyn de Worde made great improvements in the art of printing, and especially in that of type-cutting. But it was more likely Pynson than he that first introduced Roman letters into England, using them as we now use italics. The books printed by him—408 in number, according to the list in Dibdin's edition (1810) of Joseph Ames's Typographical Antiquities—are generally distinguished by their neatness and elegance, hardly by their accuracy, nor, a few excepted, by the literary value of their contents.